Neverending Story
Remember when we were on the 5-yard line in the Theo compensation talks? Remember when Bud Selig said he'd get involved if a decision hadn't been agreed to by sometime in November? Remember when he said the same thing about December? January? Remember two weeks ago when were told Bud would have a decision by week's end? Rememer this week when we were told the same thing? To the surprise of exactly zero people this has been delayed yet again.
At this stage, the source says, the Sox are hopeful of acquiring one quality minor-league prospect from the Cubs. They’re resigned to not getting a major leaguer from the Cubs, and acknowledge it probably won’t be one of the Cubs’ premium prospects, like a Brett Jackson or Josh Vitters. But the source says the Sox are insisting on acquiring a prospect with a legitimate chance of making it to the big leagues as a contributor.
The Red Sox expect a decision in the coming week, the source said. — Gordon Edes
I think GW said it best recently when he said he was confident that the decision would be a player to be named later.
By the way, what prospect doesn't have a legitimate chance of making it to the big leagues as a contributor? If Ryan Theriot and Darwin Barney can do it then so can anyone else. If all they want is that give them the lowest ranked prospect in the organization. Someone like Hayden Simpson who was accidentally chosen in the first round of the draft by the Cubs.
The Cubs' Way
The Cubs' Way is now a manual. This is my favorite quote:
You can't figure this thing out. — Theo Epstein
Recently DFA'd
Blake DeWitt still has a chance to compete for the 2nd base job if he decides to return to the organization. He'd just add one more mediocre 2nd basemen to the mix.
Things That Will Be A Distraction
Theo doesn't think the Starlin Castro rape allegations will be a distraction.
MESA, Ariz. — Starlin Castro should be at camp when position players are scheduled to report on Thursday, and the offseason allegations surrounding him are not expected to be a distraction, said president of baseball operations Theo Epstein.
Let's remember that the Cubs sportwriters didn't overreact to someone chatting with his friends and family on a computer. They didn't overreact to a pitcher taking batting practice and they didn't overreact to a pitcher hanging out in a park. The media will make whatever the hell they want a distraction. Thankfully for Castro he isn't alleged to have done any of the above. So Theo may be right.
Comments
Q: DeWitt was DFA’ed, and if released he gets $200K or so. How much does he get if outrighted or if he miraculously makes the roster? Does he get the full contract he got in arbitration or do they negotiate a new deal?
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I fully expect Castro to get the Full Bradley during ST, complete with the article where Sullivan asks him the same question 5 times and then accuses Castro of refusing to let it go.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
I think he still has the same deal. When players are DFA’d and released, if they sign a new contract with another team the old team is still responsible for the money owed.
BerseliusQuote Reply
And I’ll add that if Castro actually raped that girl, he deserves whatever he gets.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
That’s what I originally thought, but the DFA took place before spring training and MLBTR suggested the Cubs only owed a sixth of the contract so now I’m confused (dying laughing)
Thanks.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
Good point. Maybe what I said only applies to FAs.
I still think the Cubs owe him the full amount, I think the 1/6 thing would only be if he was released.
BerseliusQuote Reply
This is going to take some getting used to.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I unliked that because it gives me a sad.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
The cover to the new “Cubs Way” manual:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Are you unsure that’s not what he doesn’t think? Or sure that it isn’t not what he does think? Or the opposite of that?
joshQuote Reply
Terrapin is one of my favorite dead songs.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I listen to that one more than any other so it’s probably my favorite. Just a great song.
mb21Quote Reply
Mad ups to GTBS with the photoshopping in that last thread.
MishQuote Reply
@ mb21:
Yeah, the lyrics, the music, the multiple parts.. it’s a beautfiul song. Recently I was lucky enough to enjoy Phil & Friends playing this. One of my most memorable and favorite moments of listening to live music.
WaLiQuote Reply
Garza –> extension?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/cubs-may-start-extension-talks-with-garza-soon.html
Just idle chitchat for now.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
It’s hard to argue with those who say it’s going to take more than 5 years before the Cubs are competitive again, but there’s part of me that can’t help but feel that, given the Cubs’ vast resources, if it takes the Superfriends more than 2 years to get this organization back in the running, they should be utterly destroyed.
And if the plan is to contend in the next three years, probably gonna need Garza to do it.
But as you say, it’s just talk right now.
Smokestack LightningQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I haven’t seen Phil and Friends play. Actually, I haven’t seen any of them since I saw Ratdog in Tempe about a decade ago. I’m going to see Furthur sometime this fall and I’m excited.
mb21Quote Reply
RC has an Unobstructed View up with a link to a contest on his blog: http://obstructedview.net/unobstructed-views/a-contest-for-folks-who-like-scrap-and-heart.html
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Ah, thank you kindly.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Smokestack Lightning:
Part of me feels the same way even though I’m also one who doesn’t think they contend until Thoyer’s initial contracts are up.
mb21Quote Reply
It may be that they don’t contend in the next five years, but Garza will still be good in 3 years or so that it’s worth signing on the off chance that they catch a few lucky breaks, or some good free agents end up coming their way. We’ll know more about the effects of the new CBA next season, so maybe after that a contention plan with a shorter timeframe will be more realistic.
Plus, just the fact that they need to still try to win a few games seems like a good enough reason to sign Garza on for a few years.
joshQuote Reply
Not to mention that if they sign Garza to a team-friendly deal, he becomes a more attractive trade piece.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/18/david-price-enjoyed-his-commercial-shoot-with-kate-upton/
(dying laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
I don’t see how these comments from Hoyer are any different from what he’s said the whole time he’s been here, re Garza. He’s always said they could maybe consider thinking about having general discussions about an extension or something in the nearish future.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ josh:
Yeah, there are solid argument for why signing him makes sense. I don’t particularly care one way or the other. I wish they had traded him this offseason, but I don’t want the Cubs to trade him just to trade him.
mb21Quote Reply
http://deadspin.com/5886296/saturday-night-lives-linsanity-cold-open-officially-exhausted-the-list-of-lin-puns
(dying laughing)
GBTSQuote Reply
Mish wrote:
I hate that prick.
GBTSQuote Reply
Theo is already poppin’ bottles
So I guess we are contending in the short-term. Well, unless Ian Stewart turns into David Ortiz, I just can’t see this team being good this season. With that extra wild card spot and that weak division, maybe next year…
PezcoreQuote Reply
Wojciechowski:
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
Especially after Woj spent 4 paragraphs using a movie analogy to talk about how great it is that that evil man Zambrano is finally gone. Theo finding new ways to tell reporters to shut up may now be what I’m looking forward to most about the season. (dying laughing)
fang2415Quote Reply
What happened to Joel Pineiro? He ended up having to sign a $1.5m minor league deal with Philly. I’m surprised Thoyer didn’t snatch him up if that was the market.
BerseliusQuote Reply
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/18/us/new-york-espn-apology/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
ACTQuote Reply
@ mb21:
Exactly, if they can’t get a return on him, then hold him and try to get a team-friendly contract that ups his trade value in the future, if the team takes the expected mediocre route.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
His trade value is probably never going to be higher than it is now. Over the next two years he’s being paid roughly 70% of his free agent value. I calculated him being worth roughly $65-70 million over 5 years including the 70% free agent value for the first 2 years. The Cubs would have to instead get him to sign for 5 years and no more than $50 million and he still has the same trade value he has now. Based on what Danks received this offseason I can’t imagine Garza signing for that much less.
Then you factor in the risk. By the 3rd year he’s going to be declining, if not sooner. He’ll have more innings and more chances to get injured. off the top of my head I’d put it at 5 years and $40 million to make it worth the Cubs risk IF they’re trying to keep his trade value up. There’s no way he’s going to sign that contract. And even if he does, he’s a pitcher and has a good chance of being injured at some point in the next year or two. Garza is also due for some regression in 2012.
A general rule of thumb is this: a player’s trade value is never higher than it is today. This is true for almost all players. There are exceptions. Injured players who sign ridiculously low contracts can prove they’re healthy and have a higher trade value down the road. Players who were ineffective one year can do the same. A player who just had the best season of his career probably has lower trade value with each passing day because that regression will begin soon. The risk of injury piles up with each additional pitch.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I’m starting to think the Garza trade wasn’t a very good idea again.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
Hey, just to quickly re-hijack yesterday’s IPA thread hijack:
Haven’t some of you people tried homebrewing and more or less liked it? Is http://www.homebrewtalk.com/ the best resource for info on that or is there a better site? Has anybody tried making wine at home? Is that worthwhile, or is it not worth bothering unless you’re growing fields of your own grapes (dying laughing)?
fang2415Quote Reply
This makes absolutely no sense, but I wish those Caribeann leagues were going on now. In December and January, my reaction to them is ‘meh”. Now that it is late February, I am really jonesing for a game to watch.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Not a true Cubs fan wrote:
.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ fang2415:
I love brewing, and HBT is the best forum I’ve found. The community there is very helpful and patient.
I know nothing about home winemaking, except that every time I’ve had homemade wine, the party turns into a near Lord of the Flies situation. (dying laughing)
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
The party becomes dominated by the conflicting impulses toward civilization and towards the will to power? (dying laughing)
Cool though, thanks for the info. I just noticed that a shop at the end of the road sells whole homebrew rigs for around £30; I’ve been thinking of trying homebrew beer but my sister is a wine drinker so we may give that a whirl first. Sounds like somebody at HBT could probably at least point us in the right direction for wine advice if necessary…
fang2415Quote Reply
@ fang2415:
Probably so. If I had to recommend a kit, I’d start with the Northern Brewer setup, and get two Better Bottles, don’t bother with glass carboys.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
Roy Halladay’s sweet car:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
We may not have that level of choice/budget for now; also, I’m guessing that it’d be a pain to get Northern Brewer stuff in the UK.
Do you use carboys in the beer process or are they just for wine? Is the main issue with the glass that it’s hard to clean/sanitize? The Better Bottles do look good, but I think we may have to go the cheap and stupid route to start out and then upgrade later…
fang2415Quote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
what is this i dont even
fang2415Quote Reply
Mike Cameron —–> Retirement
BerseliusQuote Reply
fang, I’ve been brewing for the last three years or so and I have done a few batches of mead (honey wine) as well. If you’re set up to brew, you’re set up to make wine (fruit wine, mead) or cider or whatever the hell else you’d like to make that doesn’t require hot distillation. The HBT forums are really helpful.
Get a decent startup kit if you think that there’s a good chance you will enjoy the hobby. I love it, personally. Don’t buy the cheapest stuff and then realize that you want better equipment down the line and have to replace it. Better bottles are fine, though I use glass carboys. Invest in an auto-siphon.
Welcome to the addiction.
mambochickenQuote Reply
@ mambochicken:
Thanks. I do see a lot of advice to invest in good equipment, but from the looks of it a nice thing about winemaking is that it really only requires a carboy/big bottle, a few tubes and corks, and a hydrometer. That would be ideal as our budgetary and space constraints are pretty severe at the moment; if we try out a minimal setup first then we can be smarter about how to use our limited resources to smooth out any bottlenecks in our process.
OV is now my favorite site for advice on both breaking addiction to alcohol consumption and creating addiction to alcohol production. (dying laughing)
fang2415Quote Reply
For anyone looking for their daily Kate Upton fix, she made a brief cameo on SNL last night: http://www.hulu.com/watch/331287/saturday-night-live-what-up-with-that-presidents-day-special#s-p1-sr-i1
GBTSQuote Reply
@ fang2415:
Don’t forget about fatty acid cross-linking.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ mb21:
All true, but occasionally market forces may drive up a player’s value beyond its true worth.
He may simply be worth more as a starting pitcher than what he’ll bring back in trade over the next three years. The Cubs still have to field a team. There’s still revenue to generate, if they’re going to have any payroll at all. It’s easy for us to say this season is a wash before it starts, but I don’t think a GM has that luxury. I guess my point is just keep him and maybe things come together, or maybe an opportunity arises that drives up his value artificially. If not, then we have a solid pitcher on the team to help the Cubs win a few games.
joshQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
MLBTR made passing reference to him being released from the Marlins for “Conduct unbecoming etc.” but didn’t elaborate. Anyone know the story there?
joshQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
I never forget about that.
fang2415Quote Reply
@ fang2415:
That was a cooking lesson I recently enjoyed.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I’ll always remember that 4 homer game he had against the White Sox. Him and Boone went back-to-back in the first inning, twice. (dying laughing)
Holy shit, he had all four by the fifth inning.
GBTSQuote Reply
(dying laughing), now turns out that my sister knew somebody who made lousy homemade wine in the 80s and may veto the whole thing. Have things improved enough since then to convince her that even idiots can make drinkable stuff nowadays?
The 80s ruin everything. (dying laughing)
fang2415Quote Reply
Non-baseball thoughts:
1. Jeremy Lin is good but needs to stop turning the ball over so damned much. Plus play defense.
2. The Miami Heat are fun to watch.
Carry on.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ fang2415:
My first wine was an orange blossom show mead. It is not that good. It’s drinkable, but it kind of smells like a felt tip marker. I will probably use most of the rest to cook with.
However, my last couple of batches of wine have come out really good. Another aspect of winemaking, at least with meads, is that they take a lot of time. Not a ton of work, but a lot of time. My last two batches are good now, but I project that they are both going to be outstanding with some time in the bottle.
For the record, I have never made wine with grapes/grape juice. I have a knowledgable oenophile/homebrewer friend who insists that while homebrewers can produce world-class beer with regularity, home winemakers using grapes generally fall well short of commercial quality wine. If I were you and didn’t have strong preferences towards grape wine, I would tell you to make cider or mead.
You can always add additional fruit or spices to liven up a mead or get different flavor profiles. I made a 20% abv sack mead with caramelized honey, bourbon-soaked oak chips, and vanilla beans that resembles a tawny port in many ways. I also recently bottled a mead made with wildflower honey and fresh cranberry juice that people have mistaken for a typical blush wine. Even the kinda-crappy orange blossom mead was mistaken for a pinot grigio.
mambochickenQuote Reply
@fang,
Oh, and if you want to get others on board with fermentation science and your new hobby, I really would start with beer. You can have delicious, well-crafted, ready-to-drink beer in about three weeks. Give people a few bottles of your early batches of standard brews (e.g., pale ale, hefe, mild, bitter, brown), and then move to more time-intensive and somewhat more difficult fermentation projects (imperial stouts, barleywines, wines, etc). My girlfriend was totally up for me starting to make meads after she had a few of my more impressive homebrews.
mambochickenQuote Reply
Per Bruce Levine, Marmol seems to have a much more controlled follow through
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ josh:
I don’t mind if the Cubs keep Garza. He’s worth the money. I’d just have preferred they trade him. He’ll be an old man by the time the Cubs are contending, but he’s going to provide value while here. I do not want the Cubs to sign him to an extension though. If they want to keep him for two years and then get a draft pick, fine. If they want to trade him next offseason, great. Signing pitchers long-term is rarely a good idea.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
Best shape of his life.
mb21Quote Reply
Apparently the Cubs signed Nate Robertson.
mb21Quote Reply
What is Theo’s issue with Moneyball (the book)? Does he really think that information would have remained with 1 or 2 teams? With all of the new types of analysis over the last decade we’ve seen that every team uses it. It’s ridiculous to think that information in the book would have remained with 1 or 2 teams. Was it even only 1 or 2 teams anyway? I’m guessing it was closer to 5 or 6. As many executives who move from team to team that information was going to reach 30 teams within a calendar year anyway.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Someone had to fill the gaping hole at 11th starter with Ramon Ortiz snatched away by SFG
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
McNutt is fucked because you’ve got a bunch of AAAA guys in AAA this year.
mb21Quote Reply
fang2415 wrote:
That’s some funny schtuff.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Suburban kidQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ mambochicken:
Hmm, thanks for the advice. I’d actually prefer to do beer, but unfortunately my sister (and landlord, and thus arbiter of what’s allowed in the kitchen) is a wine nazi who’s had like three beers in her life and doesn’t want any more.
It looks like the best way to make grape wines may actually be from kits; I’m thinking something like this might be a good way to start. The word “Barolo” may also have been persuasive… If we can get something that’s at least of medium supermarket-quality, then hopefully that’ll buy me enough credibility that we can expand into the rest of the kitchen, (dying laughing). Luckily, it seems like this stuff may be a lot cheaper over here — 6 bottles of Barolo for £12 is hard to argue with…
fang2415Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
If he’s ready to make the jump, none of those guys are going to hold him back. He probably needs more time to get his groove back anyway, and he can do that just as easily in AA.
BerseliusQuote Reply
False.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
They’re fun to watch. They’re just not very likable (dying laughing)
Rice CubeQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
I think it sped up the process. I haven’t seen him say anything disparaging about it, but I haven’t been paying that close attention. What I’ve seen is that he said he didn’t read it (which isn’t completely outrageous, since I doubt leading economists read the pop-economics-for-dummies books that exist for the sole purpose of making people feel smart) and that he didn’t see the movie.
Did he read Joe Morgan’s Baseball for Dummies? Did he read Canseco’s book about steroids? I’d bet not.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
Generally, I don’t get the compulsion to punch the shit out of people that are fun to watch.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I don’t think any of them should read or see it unless they want to. That doesn’t matter to me. My guess is that most current GMs wouldn’t like the movie and would only like the book slightly better. It’s a simplified version of their job and people tend to not appreciate it when someone simplifies their work. It’s no surprise Tony LaRussa doesn’t like it. I think if managers and GMs were being honest and not afraid of backlash at least 29 of them would despise it. But I think it’s naive to think that 1) only 1 or 2 teams had that knowledge and 2) the book is responsible for sharing that knowledge. The truth is that there’s not really anything groundbreaking in Moneyball. Teams had been exploiting the market inefficiencies for decades. Branch Rickey sough to acquire the undervalued African Americans. Prior to that teams began building elaborate farm systems to develop cheap, young talent. Teams began heavily scouting Latin America. They’ve done the same in Asia and other parts of the world too.
Hell, even the Cubs were the first organization to use a computer to analyze statistics. It’s too bad the same computer sat at Wrigley Field all these years, but the Cubs, at that time, made an effort to take advantage of something other teams weren’t.
I’m fine with Theo not liking it or not reading it. I get that, but I don’t accept his explanation as anything other than nonsense.
mb21Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Yeah, I think this is the big part of it. Keith Law has also been a vocal critic because he felt it made way too much hay over the scouts/stats divide. He also had issues with the reporting, since a quote was misattributed to/from him.
I think the point is more that the inefficiencies that the A’s were exploiting were relatively new ground, though like most things in the book the gap between the A’s and other orgs was much smaller than implied.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
I agree with this, but what can you exploit that isn’t relatively new ground? I’m sure Yankees historians could probably talk for hours how they’ve be exploiting these inefficiencies for a century. This is why I’ve always felt those who thought there were no more market inefficiencies just didn’t get it. These have existed since baseball began and they still do. The teams that do the best over a long period of time will be those with more progressive front offices (like the Cubs hopefully). Just look at what Beane has done since Moneyball. He went from undervalued OBP players to defense to undervalued SLG players. And probably more that none of us noticed.
mb21Quote Reply
I guess new ground was the wrong term, but I think we’re arguing while agreeing here (dying laughing). Anyone expoliting inefficiencies is ahead of the curve by definition. What made Oakland more interesting than writing about the Yankees is the difference in payrolls.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
(dying laughing) yeah, that’s what we were doing. I agree, the A’s made a better story, though it’s interesting that team they covered was pretty damn good even with the guys they lost.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I swear, every time Wade and LeBron hook up for an alley-oop, they give each other this seductive look like they’re totally going to hump in the locker room.
I’m not even trying to be funny. Watch their highlights from tonight.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
GBTSQuote Reply
What if it were revealed that LeBron and Wade were actually gay lovers together in Miami? Would that be the biggest sports story in history? Given America’s attitude towards both LeBron and homosexuals, I think it would. It might even end sports history again.
GBTSQuote Reply
Could some of you spreadsheet-lovers explain why this is happening?
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/19/chone-figgins-likely-to-serve-as-mariners-third-baseman-leadoff-hitter/
Sense, this makes none.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing)
fang2415Quote Reply
Best shape of his life?@ Rice Cube:
8volumesthickQuote Reply
GBTS wrote:
That would be dwarfed by Lebron, Wade and Bosh three-waying it regularly.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ 8volumesthick:
At some point about a month or so ago Eric Wedge had thought about moving Ichiro down in the order, which I thought was probably okay because Ichiro wasn’t getting on base enough to continue hitting leadoff (though last year could’ve been a fluke). But putting Figgins there seems like a fire-able offense to me. Maybe they know something we don’t know. Or maybe they really want the #1 pick in next year’s draft.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
They probably would only let Bosh watch.
GBTSQuote Reply
My dad who is in his 70s told me the other day that he’s in the best shape of his life.
The best shape of my life was probably around age 12 (dying laughing). I finally made it to the A league in Little League that year, but didn’t quite live up to my spring training potential.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Alvin’s a regular Clark Kent.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
The amount of commas, the ones that Alvin uses, amazes me every time.
WaLiQuote Reply
palm ———> face
http://obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/daily-facepalm-2-20-2012-theyre-back.html
AndCountingQuote Reply